To ensure greater transparency on the supply of vaccines across the world, the WTO and the IMF have launched the WTO-IMF Covid-19 Vaccine Trade Tracker that provides data on the cross-border flow of Covid-19 vaccines by product, country and arrangement type.

“The portal provides an array of data on total vaccine supply to date, exports by producing economy and by supply arrangement type, imports by income group and by continent, supply by manufacturing economy and vaccine type, supply to continents and vaccination status,” according to a WTO statement.

Vaccine tracker

The vaccine tracker draws information from the public domain, the Covax Global Vaccine Market Assessment, the Unicef, Duke Global Health Innovation Center, Airfinity, Our World in Data, the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank and the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team.

The new platform builds on the work of the WTO Secretariat information notes on Covid-19 and world trade and the IMF Staff Discussion Note — A proposal to end Covid-19 pandemic’.

Vaccine inequity

Vaccine inequity is the world’s biggest obstacle to ending this pandemic and recovering from Covid-19, according to the WHO.

Studies have shown that doses delivered to G20 countries per capita are 15 times higher than doses delivered per capita to sub-Saharan African countries and low-income countries and three times higher than doses delivered per capita in all other countries combined.

The data contained in the tracker is preliminary and will be subject to revisions in collaboration with countries and areas, suppliers, and immunisation, health and financing partners, the release said. Updates will be provided every month to reflect latest developments

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